


Used to Be

by greenpen



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-18 19:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13106565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenpen/pseuds/greenpen
Summary: He tells them he isn’t going to wait until the week after New Year’s to see the Company shrink.He tells them he needs to start the year with the slate wiped clean.Posted for Advent Calendar on December 22, 24, and 26.





	1. Chapter 1

He tells them he isn’t going to wait until the week after New Year’s to see the Company shrink.

He tells them he needs to start the year with the slate wiped clean.

On December 23 he gets an email from Human Resources telling him to go see a therapist at Alexandria Hospital. “In order to process your request to exit the Agency, you must complete a psychiatric evaluation to determine your fitness of mind.”

Just like that, something in his chest lets go. He feels a wave of relief flood over him, the end finally, sweetly in sight.

He drives to the closest liquor store and buys the cheapest bottle of whiskey they have. This isn’t a time for celebration, he knows this. And yet there is something inside of him that knows— _ God, he can almost taste it _ —that he’s almost out.

The truth is, he’s done this before. He’s gone down this road and back too many times to count. Like a clock inside of him, ticking, murmuring:  _ Yes, it’s time. _

He pedals, then retreats.

Usually at this point, the prospect of leaving  _ jolts _ him back into position. The reflection staring at him from the other side of that warped mirror frightens him into stillness. Can you do anything else?  _ No, you can’t. _ Do you want to?  _ Well, now…   _

He returns back to the motel with the bottle of whiskey, sleeved into a brown paper bag. That always made him feel like a total deadbeat. It  _ was _ the cheapest one there.

He’d been staying here ever since he got back from Germany. It was tacky but cheap, with bright, multi-colored Christmas bulbs out front and one of those mechanical Santas at the front desk. 

He usually stayed here between missions—no one was around during the day, so it was noiseless as he slept from dawn until dusk.

At night, he’d drink himself into a stupor. He would practice speeches into the bathroom mirror—speeches he would never give—as the refills of whiskey grew deeper and deeper.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been…”

_ No, that’s too sentimental. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to be stronger. No one gives a shit how you felt as a kid. _

“I realized I needed to be there for my own son…”

_ He won’t buy that. Plenty of other guys in the group are occasional fathers. _

“What I really think is that you should go fuck yourself!”

_ Maybe… _

They are all a part of his story, each tangential thread. They are all his reasons and yet exactly none of them.

He wonders if the shrink will ask why. He’s never actually gotten to the shrink part. He’d pedaled and retreated, threatened everyone in his wake, once every few years, like an itch he needed to scratch.

The last time was after John was born. He made a promise to Julia he’d leave, move to Philly to be with them both, so that finally they could be some semblance of a family.

Instead, Dar got to him, pushed all the right buttons, the ones he himself had planted. And now he writes a check to Julia once a month and hasn’t seen his son in four years. He practically hates himself for how predictable he is.

He wonders what they’re doing at this moment, almost two hundred miles away. John was actually a kid now, not just a baby. He would be in awe of Christmas, he thinks—of the lights and the lore, the presents and cookies and time off from school. It snowed last week, too.

He imagines taking him sledding, like in the movies. Plastic bags inside his boots to protect from the snow, extra tissues in his pocket in case his nose starts to run.

They don’t go to the same hill as the other dads and sons in the neighborhood. He doesn’t tell him where they’re going, just directs him farther, and away.

It’s a remote clearing, pine trees stretching fifty feet into the air, trees that have been around longer than he can even comprehend.

Together, they are a scene from a goddamned Rockwell painting. John doesn’t complain or ask “are we there yet?” but quietly, dutifully follows his father up the hill. They climb, higher and harder. He is his father’s son.

He watches his breath in front of him—maybe this is what it’s like to smoke a cigarette. He brings his thumb and forefinger together, then to his lips, the way his dad does behind the house.

“This, son, is a rite of passage in our family.”

“What’s a rite?”

He stops and thinks.

“Something that you’re owed, and something you owe.”

“It’s both?”

“Yes, both.”

Now they are at the top of the hill, at least a hundred feet above the small plane. There is no sound, save for an occasional crunch of snow as a squirrel or rabbit scurries behind them or down below.

“You ready?” he asks.

“Yeah,” John answers.

“Alright,” he begins. “Now look here. This sled was my dad’s before me. And his dad before him. And his dad’s before him. And  _ his _ dad built it. See the carvings?”

He kneels down to his son’s height and holds out the sled.

John puts his thumb up to the wood and traces over the swirl of ivy and berries, worn from years of use.

“Wow.”

“One day, when I’m gone, it’ll be yours too.”

“Really?”

“Of course. And when you have a son of your own, you can take him out sledding just like we’re doing now.”

“Cool.”

“Now all you have to do is sit very still and tight at the front. Bring your knees to your chest.” He begins to direct him, bending his arms and knees like a GI Joe. 

“There ya go. Perfect… Now I’ll run and push you and then at the last minute hop on behind you.”

“You mean I’m not going down by myself?”

He tries not to register the disappointment in his son’s face.

“No, not today. I’ll be right behind you though. My weight will take us down faster.”

John nods, and they walk over a few feet from the edge of the hill.

He sits down as instructed by his father, making himself into a neat, tiny ball.

“OK. Ready?”

“Ready.”

And he starts running, his hands on his son’s back, pushing forward quickly and with force. It’s a move out of the Winter Olympics as he hops on behind John, a split second before the edge.

He wraps his arms around his son tightly, forcing their bodies into a single mass.

Then out from his son escapes a cry, delirious and exhilarating. The wind nips up against his face as he throws his head back, into the cradle of his father’s chest. Then his father cries out, that same delirious, exhilarating sound.

They are freezing, and hungry, and speeding through the wilderness. They are howling, screaming until their voices break. They are uncontrolled, but finally free. They are wolves.

. . . . 

The first treatment was four days ago. Four days since she was flat on the hospital bed and let them attach electrodes to her skull. These two little wands, with ends like silver dollars, pressed onto her forehead.

Four days since she was jolted into a seizure.  _ Jolted _ . That’s what Saul had said.

And then two days later, they did it all over again.

Her face is sullen and sunken, ashen under the fluorescent light. She can’t be bothered to care. She can’t even remember what day it is. Only that it’s been four days since the first treatment, and two days since they did it all over again.

She measures time now in things  _ between _ and things  _ until _ .

Her jaw still aches. She’ll tell Dr. Rosenberg. Maybe they can give her more muscle relaxants next time.

Maggie is next to her in the waiting room. Her father has come, too, though she begged him not to.

At least, she thinks she begged. The space between what her mind is telling her and what reality has certified feels massive and uncrossable now. Like tectonic plates shifting farther apart until they completely sever, before crashing back into each other.

_ Pangaea _ . She learned about that in school.

She thinks that tomorrow might be Christmas. And usually on Christmas Eve, they have roast beef with this really delicious Roquefort sauce that her mother used to make.

For a few years after she left, she attempted to recreate it from memory, from years of watching her mother at the stove, first from a footstool, then right beside her. She remembered the ingredients in her mother’s hands: heavy cream, crème fraîche and the cheese of course (both of which they had to go to a special market for), white pepper (“this way the sauce is perfectly white”), butter, flour…

But there was always something missing. It was never quite right. They never bothered to write down the recipe. It didn’t seem like something anyone else would ever need to know how to make. After a few years of failed attempts, she gave up altogether. Maggie handwaved about it, but they all knew it wasn’t the same.

In the car on the way, Maggie mentioned takeout. She knows because she wrote it down in the notebook they gave her.

_ We find it helps some patients who are nervous about the potential memory loss to have a kind of… contingency plan. _

She looks down at the paper in her hands now, its color the lightest, faintest shade of gold, probably the shade her hair used to be. And the dark red elastic dangling from the back, probably the tint of her lips. Bound in black leather.

She’s written the most important things on the first page.

Maggie’s address. Maggie’s phone and pager numbers. Her treatment team’s first and last names. Treatment schedule: Tuesday, Thursday. Therapy schedule: Wednesday, Saturday. Six weeks from start is January 31.

These are the essential details of her life.

After the first page, one for every day. Today is the fourth day.

> _ Saturday, December 24, 2011 _
> 
> _ Bill at home with girls _
> 
> _ Hot chocolate _
> 
> _ Pancakes?  _
> 
> _ Appointment 2pm  _
> 
> _ Takeout _

Carefully she writes down “Pangea,” trying to control her shaking head and concentrate on the shape the letters should be.

She reads over the page like scripture, tracing her finger down the page.

> _ Pancakes? _

She doesn’t remember what that means, which probably defeats the purpose. She nudges Maggie. 

“Do you remember what this is about?” she whispers, pointing to the single word and question mark.

She watches as Maggie deciphers her scrawl and mouths the word in two syllables. “Paaaan-caaaake.”

“Oh. Dad asked if you wanted pancakes tomorrow morning. For Christmas morning. Rem—”

She stops just short of saying it.

“Oh yeah,” she says. “Thanks.”

She looks up at the clock in the waiting room. 2:01.

Ordinarily it wouldn’t be difficult to occupy herself while waiting. Ordinarily she also wouldn’t have two chaperones to a therapy session. Her father is reading a novel, not his usual  _ Post _ . She thinks Maggie might have forbidden it. She looks at the end table next to her and its assortment of magazines.

Peeking out from the middle of the stack she can see the  _ Time _ magazine and its headline splashed across the top:

> _ TERROR IN NATION’S CAPITAL. EXPERTS WEIGH IN: WHAT HAPPENED? _

She shifts. She thinks about the moving plates and the vast, vast ocean and she feels like she’s being swallowed.

She remembers the sharp, piercing sound from the gunshots. One, two, three. Bodies lurching forward and then backward, splitting, nanoseconds. Was that inertia? Is that what bodies did? She’d never seen that before.

She remembers the smell of the grass just beneath her and the aching,  _ sure _ feeling in the pit of her stomach, like déjà vu but in reverse. She knew. She knew she knew she knew.

She remembers him, outside the station. The way he looked at her, like the way she’d looked at terrorist suspects. Like the way she’d looked at  _ him _ , that first day on the cameras. Like she was a rabid animal let out of her cage.

She remembers the nurse reading the questionnaire out to her as she sat in one of the evaluation rooms, stripped to a gown, hot and cold all over.

“Now I’m going to read out some symptoms to you. And just nod your head if you’ve experienced them in the last week or so and shake your head if you haven’t.”

She was really sweet and lovely. She hated that she had to be here sitting with her.

“Depressed mood?”

She nods.

“Unable to enjoy activities?”

She nods.

“Sleep pattern disturbance?”

“Yes.”

“Change in appetite?”

“Yes.”

“Excessive guilt?”

“Yeah.”

“Fatigue?”

She nods.

“Decreased libido?”

She pauses, then shakes her head.

“Racing thoughts?”

“Yes.”

“Impulsivity?”

“Yes.”

“Increased risky behavior?”

“Yes.”

“Increased irritability?”

“Yeah.”

“Excessive worry?”

“Um… yeah, I guess.”

“Anxiety attacks?”

“No, not really.”

“Avoidance?”

“No.”

“Hallucinations?”

She shakes her head.

“Excessive energy?”

“Yes.”

“Suspiciousness?”

She pauses for a moment. She looks at the nurse’s name badge. It says Deborah. She said she could call her Debbie though.

She looks back up at her and her muted blue scrubs. She can’t even find the word.

> _ You are a rabid, sickly animal. _
> 
> _ And you tricked me! You tricked me in all the ways I could be tricked. _
> 
> _ You tricked me first. _

“Carrie?... Yes?”

“Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was always an awkward silence at the beginning of their sessions. 

She thinks  _ always,  _ but it’s only their third meeting. Once an anomaly, twice a coincidence, third time’s a pattern. She thinks that’s how it went, when they taught her about pattern recognition back at Langley, before her first posting.

About detecting small, seemingly insignificant details and drawing meaning from them. Like the last dregs out of a used tea bag.

Look into trash cans.

Observe mindless habits during down moments.

Left-handed or right-handed?

Talker or listener?

She learned early on that some people live their lives as if they’re being followed and their every word recorded.

She can’t decide what power dynamic is at play with him. He sits in silence, his hands clasped in his lap. He lifts his eyebrows as if to say “So…?” and waits in the quiet.

He doesn’t write in a notebook when they talk. Occasionally she thinks his eyes have gone unfocused and he’s not actually looking at her but at some single point in space on her face, possibly between her eyebrows. She thinks ice skaters might do this, to keep from losing balance and momentum.

“My jaw still hurts,” she finally says.

“Your jaw still hurts?”

“Yes, it’s worse today. I remember the pain yesterday. It was a six. Today it’s a seven.”

“Well, we can see about increasing your muscle relaxants, but I believe you’re already at the max dosage for your height and weight.”

She doesn’t respond and a few seconds later he asks if she’s been eating regularly since the second treatment.

“I haven’t been that hungry actually.”

“No Christmas cookies?”

She knows this is his way to lighten the mood. It’s like a cave in here, really. There are windows on the far wall but it’s dark and grey outside and she feels like she’s been submerged.

“No. No Christmas cookies.”

He uncrosses his legs and crosses them again. She wonders if he’s trying to conceal an erection. Does this get him off? Is he trying to distract her? She flits her head to the door, aiming to hear the sound he doesn’t want her to notice.

“Carrie?”

She raises her eyebrows again, mirroring him.

_ So what? _

“Aside from the jaw pain and lack of appetite, how else are you feeling?”

“How else?”

“How else.”

He says it matter-of-factly, as if there should be any more, as if there could be something beyond jaw pain and lack of appetite. There is a part of her that feels like just a vessel, empty and untethered. Maybe, finally, unanchored.

“Have you had any nausea? Headaches?”

“No, not really.”

“Not really or no?”

“No.”

“Mood swings?”

“Um… I feel a little…”

She blinks, once and then again. The act of steadying herself feels mammoth and it's perhaps her only remaining task. 

“Saul called this morning.”

She doesn’t know why she said it. For some reason it feels safer and easier.

“He did?”

“Yes.”

He is always questioning her, confirming every detail. It’s like she’s under a microscope. She imagines looking up at him, sliced across her width. He places a drop of water on her. It stings and it burns. Then he fixes a square of glass right on top and adjusts the magnification.

“What did you talk about?”

He turns the knob.

“Work stuff, mostly.”

“Work?”

“Well, his work stuff I guess.”

He turns it again.

“How did that make you feel?”

For a moment she thinks she sees him shut one eye and wrinkle his face as he examines her.

“I… what do you mean?” She swallows again.  

He prepares himself.

“Well, you were terminated from your position there. He was your boss and mentor for many years. I can’t imagine it’s easy to talk to him about work.”

“He’s been having issues in the division… working up the chain.”

Suddenly she’s incensed and incredulous. If there is really glass in between them she will punch her fist out and shatter it, never mind the blood.

“There was just a terrorist attack, you know.”

“I’m aware.”

Then: “Did you talk about anything else or just work stuff?”

“I… I don’t remember.”

It’s her last line of defense and he doesn’t push her after that for some reason.

She, too, backpedals from the edge. She indulges his questions. She feeds him the answers he wants to hear. She wonders if he knows she is feeding him the answers he wants to hear and eventually the line of thought just doubles in on itself like a paper crane, an endless maze of folds and creases.

But he doesn’t repeat her words back to her. He uncrosses and re-crosses his legs. It might just be an idle habit.

She studies his mouth, and the way words escape it, the way he enunciates on certain syllables. His eyes are unmoving, though, and she thinks they’ve gone unfocused again.

If he was a military sniper, this is exactly where the red dot would land. Square between the eyes, just above the bridge of her nose.

Why did they teach you to aim there? Was it so right before you pulled the trigger you couldn’t see them staring back at you, begging for mercy or delay?

> _ It’s called the apricot. This tiny little pit in the brain stem. You get that and the other guy can’t move. It’s just —  _ he snaps his fingers _ — like that. Gone, instantly. You're so far away, they don’t even see it coming. _
> 
> _ Jesus… Pass the tequila. _

. . . . 

He was almost late. And he’s never almost late to anything. He has a soldier’s precision. It’s been branded into his brain for a decade and a half. 

There is a part of him that feels like this may be his last chance. Because Dar won’t be in the next room, listening in, or waiting outside after to pull him back.

He is standing on the other side of the door that leads to whatever comes next—maybe blackness, maybe nothing—and all he has to do is open it. Turn the knob, step over the threshold, and walk.

Now, he is sitting. It’s ten until two. In his panic over possibly being late he ended up speeding all the way here and now he’s actually early.

Hospitals on Christmas are pretty fucking depressing, he thinks. Because, with the sole exception of himself and only himself, no one else wants to be here. In an entire building of people—a veritable complex even—he’s the only one who was given a choice.

There is a single receptionist in the office. She’s seated behind one of those plexiglass sliding windows. And there are three other people sitting here, closer to the front.

One man, in his late sixties maybe, reading a Ken Follett novel. He has reading glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He’s taken off his jacket.

He’s sitting next to two women. One in her mid-thirties maybe, the other maybe a few years older. There are ten empty seats in the waiting area but they’re all seated in a row. Maybe they’re a family.

A twisted feeling of pity unravels inside of him—a family of three in the outpatient psych unit on Christmas Eve. Jesus Christ. It was actually rather pathetic.

The woman in the middle is reading a  _ Real Simple _ magazine. She’s silent but interested. She’s not just flipping through the pages absentmindedly. She pauses and reads, for thirty seconds or a minute, flips, pauses, reads.

She has a pager affixed to her belt, which intrigues him. She must be a physician. No one else ever carried a pager.

At the end, nearest to him, was the other woman. Her hair is blonde but looks unwashed, mostly straight with a slight wave in the middle.

She’s wearing a navy sweatshirt and grey sweatpants beneath her jacket, which she hasn’t taken off. The others had. He wonders if she’s about to bolt. There could be no other reason…

She’s holding a small black notebook, a pen in her right hand. He watches as she flips to the front of the notebook and reads with stifling concentration. Her fingers, small and delicate, trace down the middle of the paper.

In his whole life he doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone read so carefully. He’s too far away to see what’s written on the pages.

The first pages of her novel, maybe. A letter to her child. A last-minute shopping list.

She flips a page and uncaps the pen. She grasps the top of the notebook and bears down, beginning to write. Her lips part slightly. Her brow furrows. She caps the pen and turns to the other woman. They might be sisters, or maybe best friends.

They whisper for a few moments—too low for him to hear—and then the one on the end turns back to her notebook.

He checks the time on his phone—2:01—and tries not to stare.

There is nothing remarkable about this woman. She is quiet and small. She reminds him of an idle bird.

There is something about the way she moves, though, unassuming but deliberate. He’s pulled in. He feels calm and steady watching her. His leg has stopped shaking, and he’s no longer nervous.

It occurs to him that he’s doing his worst at eavesdropping. He is unable to avert his eyes. Yet she does not notice. It’s like he’s looking at her from the other side of a one-way mirror. Standing in the dark, he sees her tennis shoes and single-knotted laces. Her eyelids, blank and brownish.

Her hair falls in her face and she sweeps it to the side, behind her ear. Her ears. She’s not wearing earrings. Her lips turn up to the side, small wrinkles around the corners of her mouth. She’s not smiling, and her eyes are closed. Is she dreaming?

Just then one of the doors in the office opens. The sign on the door reads “P. Rosenberg.” A bearded man steps out. “Carrie?” he says.

The woman on the end—she must be Carrie—looks up. Her eyes are open now. She rises, still holding tight to the small black notebook.

She walks into P. Rosenberg’s office, which from his seat looks dark and cramped. The door closes behind her, and he can’t hear any sound.

He checks his phone again—2:04. He rises and walks over to the receptionist. He taps on the plexiglass with two fingers.

“Excuse me?”

She slides it open.

“Yes?”

“My appointment was at two. It’s now… five past.”

“Name?”

“Peter Quinn.”

She types into her computer and squints her eyes.

“Dr. Hendricks is just wrapping up with another patient right now. He’ll be with you just as soon as he’s done.”

“When will that be?”

“It shouldn’t be long.”

“I have somewhere to be.”

“I’m sorry for the wait, he’ll be out as soon as he’s done with the other patient.”

He glances back down at his phone—2:06. All of a sudden he feels parched and sweaty. All the calm he’d felt has gone.  

“Is there a vending machine around here? I need a bottle of water.”

“At the gift shop. Ground level.”

“Jesus…. Look, I’ll be right back. I have to get some water. If the doctor comes out while I’m away, tell him I’ll be right up.”

“Sure thing.”

It takes him ten minutes to find the gift shop in this labyrinth of a hospital. He’s almost out of breath when he arrives.

He makes a beeline for the refrigerator case at the back and grabs a bottle of water and takes it to the cashier. On the television behind her, the Redskins are playing the Vikings. He can hear the faint but unmistakable din of Frank Sinatra coming from the lobby outside.

“Will this be all?”

He’s staring at the display of toys beside the counter. There’s tinsel strewn haphazardly on the shelves and fake garlands lining the edges. It’s mostly crap and plastic. There is a snow globe of the Washington Monument and the White House and the Lincoln Memorial with the words “WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA” emblazoned on the bottom. As if anyone would actually want to mark their time here.

Nestled in the back of what can only be described as the saddest Christmas display known to man is a small wooden stack. He picks it up and the wooden pieces fall in a straight line. They’re fixed together with red and green ribbon down the side. It’s a Jacob’s ladder. He had one as a boy.

He flips the top piece down and watches as they all follow, one by one, cascading like a sandy waterfall. He smiles at the soft clanking and remembers how he’d stay transfixed for hours by this stupid thing.

“Sir?”

“Uh… this too,” he says, and places the toy on the counter.

“That’ll be eighteen fifty two.”

He pulls a twenty from his wallet.

“Keep the change.”

“Would you like a bag, sir?”

“Ok.”

She places the bottle and the Jacob’s ladder into a small brown bag, turns the top over, and slides him the bag.

“Thank you.”

“Merry Christmas,” she says.

“Merry Christmas,” he replies softly.

He pulls his phone out as he exits the gift shop and dials her number. He still knows it by heart. The numbers come out of his fingers as if by reflex.

He pulls it to his ear.

She picks up after the third ring.

“Julia?” he says.

He’s standing in the middle of the lobby as he hears her voice on the other end.

“It’s me,” he says.

“John?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Why are you calling?”

“I needed to hear your voice.”

“Are you ok?”

“I’m about to go in for my psych eval… I’m leaving the group.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving… I’m really doing it, though. I told them I couldn’t wait until January to do it. I’m doing it now.”

“That’s…” she starts.

“How are you?”

She’s silent on the other end.

“Jules?”

“I’m fine.”

“How’s Johnny?”

“He’s fine, too. We’re both… fine.”

“I’m going to come see you after I get out. I got a present for Johnny… Is it snowing there yet?”

“John.”

There’s distant chatter in the background. Maybe her sisters have come over. It gets fainter until it’s only whispers.

“Can I come see you next week?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What about the week after?”

“No.”

“Well… when can I come? I want to see Johnny. I want to see you, too.”

“Listen… we have guests over right now. This really isn’t a good time. I can talk to you on Monday or Tuesday.”

“We? We who?”

He can hear her sigh. It’s a sharp, distinct, piercing sound.

“You… you know who ‘we’ is.”

“Julia?”

“I’m sorry, John. Merry Christmas.”

“Tell him I said—”

There’s a click and then it’s over. He stares down at the phone.

_ CALL ENDED. _

He checks the time again — it’s almost two-thirty.

“Shit,” he mutters.

In an easier world, he might have missed the appointment altogether. When he got back to the office, it would have been shuttered dark, a piece of paper with “CLOSED” in tall black letters taped to the front, the door to the other side locked and unmoving. It would have been an easy excuse and one he would have been able to live with until he got the itch a year or two later.

It’s not that easy, though. He gets back to the office a few minutes later. The receptionist has not moved and she confirms the shrink hasn’t come for him yet.

He takes his same seat again. The old man is still reading Ken Follett. The woman is—somehow—still focused on  _ Real Simple _ . The seat next to them is still empty.

P. Rosenberg’s door is still closed shut. He still can’t hear anything.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and feels the brown paper bag. He pulls it out and takes a sip from the water bottle.

He looks down at his phone, half-expecting to get a text from Julia.

> _ Johnny says Merry Christmas, too! See you soon! xo _

There is no text, of course. His own son doesn’t even know who he is. He doesn’t know that he’s leaving for him.

“Peter?”

He looks up. A man, bearded, is standing over the threshold of an unmarked door.

He stuffs the brown paper bag back into his coat and walks over to him.

“Are you Dr. Hendricks?” he asks.

“Yes. Come on in. I’m sorry for the wait.”

He walks into his office and turns back toward the door. Hendricks closes it behind them.

“There’s no name on the door,” he says.

“I don’t usually practice here,” Hendricks says. “So this isn’t really my office.”

“Oh.”

“Have a seat. You can take your coat off.”

He sits.

“Ready?” he asks as he takes the chair across from him.

He hesitates.

“Ready.”

. . . . 

When it’s over, Hendricks leads him out of the office. The old man and the woman are gone and so is the receptionist.

Hendricks says something about giving a report first thing Monday morning. He thanks him and takes the elevator down to the atrium. He walks past the gift shop and out the front doors.

It’s cold—much colder—now, and he zips his coat, flipping the collar up around his neck. He pulls a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lights it. He stops to sit on one of the benches out front and lets go of a breath he feels like he’s been holding for years.

The smoke and cold air fill his lungs. He shifts idly, rolling his neck in broad semi-circles, staring back up at the hospital. Lights emit from the windows in large white squares, a game of tic-tac-toe stretching eight stories up.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the brown paper bag again. He takes out the Jacob’s ladder and flips the top rectangle again. He watches the pieces fall all the way down, clacking softly. They shake slowly back and forth, as if on the axis of a stiff rope.

He remembers studying the physics of the ladder as a child, reading through textbooks about Isaac Newton and the apple and the tree.

> _ An object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. _

He touches his thumb and middle finger to the end of the ladder and stills it.

He flips the ladder over and it starts again.

> _ When a force acts upon an object, acceleration is produced. The greater the mass of the object, the greater the amount of force needed to accelerate the object. _

He takes a final drag from his cigarette, drops the butt, and stamps it with his shoe.

> _ For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. _

He stacks the wooden blocks together again and places the toy gently into the bag beside him. He rises, leaving the bag on the bench, as snow begins to fall above him. He sticks his hands into his now empty pockets and walks the two blocks back to his car.

Later tonight, or maybe tomorrow, some unsuspecting stranger will skeptically open the bag and find the toy inside.

He knows that’s how it always would have been.


	3. Chapter 3

He didn’t often listen to the radio while driving, preferring near-complete silence. It was one of the few times he could think, unencumbered by mission details or the now close-to-constant dread and anxiety he felt over everything in his life he wasn’t doing. The distraction of driving drowned it all out. Except tonight, and except now. 

He gets in his car and drives, away. The traffic subsides as he leaves the city, heading south, down 95. He turns the radio on then, drowning out the voices in his head that are telling him he’s just made the greatest mistake of his life and the periodic squeak of the windshield wipers brushing snow away.

He figures he’ll just drive, without thought or regard. “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole takes him to Lorton, “Last Christmas” to Occoquan.

“Feliz Navidad” outside Richmond.

A too-perky rendition of “Santa Baby” as he passes by Roanoke Rapids, and yet he can’t help himself from softly singing along.

“O Holy Night” as he closes in on Fayetteville.

If he followed the interstate all the way down he’d end in Miami, at the tip of the edge.

Maybe he’ll go to the Keys. Maybe he’ll take a boat to Cuba. He could start a new life anywhere, lay in the sand during the day and drink whiskey sodas at night. He could sleep with the windows open. He had a decent amount of money saved, from years living as simply as possible. He could get a job when the money ran out. He could drive boats or keep bar.

He drives until he’s out of gas, just north of the South Carolina border. John Lennon sings of ending war and he wonders whether John knew when he was gunned down that this was only the beginning.

One, two, three, four.

Then he was gone.

. . . .

She can’t sleep but she’s not been able to sleep for what feels like weeks. The weight of her tiredness feels like an anvil on her chest, making it harder to breathe or move or think about anything else.

She stares up at the ceiling. The lights from the lawns on the street filter into her room in a strange array of red, yellow, green, and blue, a life-size kaleidoscope.

She stares at the clock on the nightstand. It flashes 1:19, big, bright, and red.

The house is quiet when she rises, save for the faintest din of what she guesses is the television downstairs. She’d gone to bed right after dinner.

“I’m sorry,” she’d said, though more out of duty than actual remorse. It had seemed like the correct thing to say. “I’m just exhausted.”

Everyone had nodded sympathetically as she departed the living room, leaving behind faint whispers from her nieces and the unmistakable sound of a  _ hush _ from her sister.

Now everyone had gone to bed except for her father, who was in almost the exact same position on the couch. He was sprawled there, his face illuminated by the light from the television and his quiet snores nearly drowned out by the sound of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye’s sing-song.

Her father loved this movie. When they were kids he would make them watch it every year, sometimes twice and once even four separate times. Frank was always Danny Kaye, of course, the wacky second fiddle. He would take their mother in his arms and hum “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing” while she sang the words. Their mother had a beautiful singing voice.

When they were old enough, Maggie and Carrie secretly memorized song and dance for “Sisters” and performed it in front of their parents on Christmas Eve to rapturous, ecstatic applause. Carrie thinks she might have been seven or eight. It was the happiest she’d ever seen her father.

She hadn’t seen the movie in years, though. And yet here it was, transporting her back to girlhood. They were all different people now. Her father looked older to her now than he ever had before.

When she came home after the first treatment he didn’t say a word. What was that feeling? Was it shame? Guilt? She wonders if he tagged along earlier today to make himself feel better, like maybe all of this wasn’t actually his fault.

She reaches for a blanket to cover her father and slouches on the floor beside him.

Onscreen, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney are talking about buttermilk and liverwurst sandwiches and the irony is not lost on her.

> _ When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. I fall asleep, counting my blessings. _

She turns back to her father, his head level with hers, sound asleep. She sits beside him and she counts.

On a table next to the fireplace, there is a short note from Josie to Santa under a plate of cookies, with carrots and celery for the reindeer.  _ That there exists the promise of magic and the unwavering belief in it. _

On the mantle, six stockings hang. They’d arranged them in chronological order, Frank to Josie.  _ That I am still in the lower half. _

Outside, snow is still falling, a blanket of whiteness over the world, soft and quiet.  _ That it is warm in here. And tomorrow he’ll sing “Snow, snow, snow!” _

On her wrist, she’s still wearing the band from the hospital, now two days old.  _ That I did it. That I’m doing it. _

Behind her, her father softly snores.  _ That he’s still here. Even if it is his fault. _

Inside the fireplace, the last remaining embers of the fire from earlier are fading, every so often emitting a sharp, unmistakable spark, brilliant and golden.  _ That I can still feel that inside of me. _

_. . . . _

The gas station is next to a 24-hour diner and it’s not until he’s filled his tank that he realizes he hasn’t eaten in a day and a half and suddenly feels famished.

He walks in and jingle bells over the door clang crassly. The place is empty, no surprise, save for a single waitress and a cook leaning against the griddle in the back.

“Hi there,” the waitress says with a faint Southern drawl. She must be at least sixty.

“Hi.”

“Sure is late for dinner. Bit early for breakfast, too.”

“I’ve been driving all night.”

“Well then, you must be pretty tired. Can I get you some coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Coming right up.”

He thinks she’s a bit cheery considering she’s alone in a restaurant serving strangers on Christmas. Then again, he is the only one here.  

She comes over a moment later with a mug and begins pouring.

“What can I get you to eat?” she asks.

“Uh… tuna melt,” he replies, looking at the menu board behind her.

She doesn’t even write it down, just turns to the cook who gets to work.

He takes a sip of the coffee, hot and bitter, almost burning his tongue. He realizes he’s still wearing his coat and removes it, placing it on the counter stool next to him.

“You like this one?” the waitress says abruptly then.

“Excuse me?” he asks, his annoyance palpable.

She points at the television set up behind the counter.

“Oh… uh…” he stutters.

“I just love this movie. Rosemary Clooney! She was so beautiful…” she starts.

“Yeah.”

“Ooh! This is my favorite part!”

She skips over to the television screen and presses a button to turn the volume up.

“That black velvet dress! I always wanted one like that when I was a girl.”

He watches as she stands there, eyes wide with rapturous attention. She begins mouthing the words and slowly sways from side to side.

> _ Love, you didn’t do right by me. As they say in the song, you done me wrong. _

“Isn’t she beautiful?” she says, almost absent-mindedly, as if to no one.

“Yeah, she is,” he says quietly.

“I always thought she should have been much more famous than she was. But I guess she was a singer, not a movie star...”

The cook rings a bell then and she swivels to retrieve the plate, placing it in front of him with practiced ease.

“Here’s your sandwich, hon. Can I get you anything else?”

“No, I’m good now, thank you.”

“God, I just love this movie! Don’t you love this movie? It’s one of my favorites...”

“Sure.”

“We don’t get much snow around these parts… it was always so magical. Imagine, an actual white Christmas.”

“Yeah.”

“Say, you never told me where you’re driving to in the middle of the night on Christmas?”

“Oh… uh… Miami.”

There was no reason to lie.

“Miami? We don’t get a lot of those here.”

“I’m going to drive boats.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I start on Monday.”

“How ‘bout that? Will you take me with you?” she says, throwing her head forward in laughter.

“If you’d like,” he says, unsure whether he’s playing along or not.

She blushes, which pleases him, even though she’s nearly twice his age.

“You sure you don’t want some pie or anything?”

“More coffee would be nice, thank you.”

He eats his sandwich quickly and gulps down the coffee.

“So you got any family down in Miami to spend Christmas with?”

“Yes, my wife and son. They’re flying down tomorrow.”

“Oh, how nice.”

He takes out his wallet and pulls out the photo of Julia and John from just after he was born.

“That’s them,” he says, almost beaming. She takes the Polaroid, lingering on it.

“Oh my. Beautiful child,” she says finally. “And wife.”

“Thank you.”

He reaches back for the photo and swaps it with a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet.

“Merry Christmas,” he says as he rises from the stool and puts his jacket back on.

She smiles at him, a kind, warm, pitying smile. She looks at him knowingly—not skeptical, just knowing—and in that moment he realizes she’s made him. There is no Miami, no boat, no wife and son waiting to join him. She knows that. Of course she knows that.

He wonders if she’ll expose him, bar him from leaving until he’s revealed the real truth about himself. Or maybe just laugh in his face, fully underlining how pathetic he is.

Behind her, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are singing in dark green uniforms.

> _ There’s a lot to be said for the army! A life without responsibility… a soldier out of luck, was really never stuck… _

What gave it away? Did he twitch when he pulled the photo out? Was it something in his voice? He deceived people for a living. That was his  _ job _ . Maybe he wasn’t as good at it as he thought.

“Merry Christmas,” she says back to him, wiping her hands on her apron.

He turns for the door, looking over his shoulder one last time at the only person in his life who’d ever really seen him.

“Drive safe,” she calls after him. “Enjoy the sun!”

His face hooks into a smile then, despite himself, and despite the secret they now shared.

He walks out the door, stuffing his hands in his pockets, jingle bells ringing in his ears overhead.

When he gets into his car his phone begins to buzz. Dar is calling. Of course. He doesn’t answer, just turns the key in the ignition and shifts the car into drive.

A minute later he has a voicemail, twenty-eight seconds long. Twenty-eight seconds, that’s all he could muster. Twenty-eight seconds of pleading, possibly guilt tripping, definitely swearing, maybe even threats.

He begins to drive and gets back on the interstate, hands on the wheel, ten and two, just as he was taught. He feels invigorated for some reason and as he crosses the border into South Carolina he begins to think about the sled and about Germany, about the liquor store where they pretended he wasn’t a regular. About his last cigarette, the Jacob’s ladder, his son and the woman in the hospital, the idle bird. Were they all real? Did they exist, solid as he was? Or were they just figments of his imagination, realities he had conjured to trick himself into believing there was more out there than what he knew?  

When he gets where he’s going, he’ll dive into the water and feel the sun on his back. He’ll work until he’s dog tired and sleep soundly at night, the windows open to the smell of salt in the air. He’ll walk slowly and with ease. It’s all small and simple, but for now it’s enough. For now it’s everything. 

They will come looking. They will get to him. Not tonight, maybe not even tomorrow or the day after or next week or next month. And he might be running away, he might be fleeing. He might just be the world’s biggest coward.

Maybe this isn’t really freedom.

But he’s no longer afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @ascloseasthis for both beta-reading and signing me up to write this under false pretenses.
> 
> The title is from the song "Used to Be" by Weyes Blood, about which @ascloseasthis declared "wow that song's as depressing as Homeland."


End file.
